Asia as the World's Largest and Most Densely Inhabited Continent - Research Paper Example

? College: Asia is the world's largest and most densely inhabited continent. It is located mainly in the eastern and northern hemispheres. Asia covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with an approximate 3.879 billion people; it is a home to 60% of the world's present human population. During the 20th century the population of Asia almost quadrupled (Mark, 2002). Asia’s history can be seen as the diverse histories of several marginal coastal regions: East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, and the Middle East, connected by the interior mass of the middle Asian steppes. The coastal periphery was habitat to some of the world's first known civilizations, every one of them rising around productive river valleys. The central plain area had for a long time been occupied by horse-mounted travelers who could reach every areas of Asia from the plains. The earliest assumed growth out of the steppe is that of the Indo-Europeans, who increased their languages to South Asia, the Middle East, and the borders of China. The northernmost division of Asia, which includes much of Siberia, was chiefly unreachable to the steppe nomads, due to the thick forests, climate as well as tundra. These regions remained very thinly populated (Randall, 2004). The middle and the borders were typically kept divided by deserts and mountains. The Himalaya Mountains and Caucasus and the Gobi and Karakum deserts formed obstacles that the steppe horsemen could only cross with trouble. As the urban city inhabitants were more superior socially and technologically, in numerous cases they could do little in an armed aspect to shield against the mounted gangs of the steppe. On the other hand, the lowlands did not have adequate open grasslands to sustain large horse bound strength. This made the nomads who conquered states in India, China and the Middle East to often adapt to the local, wealthier societies (Randall, 2004). The Islamic Caliphate took over Central Asia and the Middle East in the Muslim invasions of the 7th century. The Mongol Empire occupied a large fraction of Asia in the 13th century. These areas extend from China to Europe. The rule of law has been peddled repeatedly by scholars in the West as an essential modernity aspect. According to that quantification of period, the rule of law being the basis of the first merger of China in the 2nd century BC, civilization occurred in china 23 centuries ago. Researchers tip that by the conclusion of the 17th century, while the Chinese empire often emerged in English literature as a symbol for tyranny, it was also at times congratulated for its lawful code long recognized on ideals of morality, order and good government (Irina, 2005). By the close of the 19th century and during to the start of the 20th, every Asian country has had Western systems of government and law. some got this by colonial obligation, an example being India and the former East Indies, presently known as Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, present-day Malaysia Hong Kong, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. Some countries had voluntary adoption - Japan and by it Korea, Nationalist China and Formosa/Taiwan (Mark, 2002). The political and legal structures introduced various directions. The Britons brought the common Law as well as the Westminster parliamentary system; the French, dutch, Spanish and Portuguese had the Civil and Roman-Dutch Law combined with administration. Late into the second half of the 20th century, Asia witnesses the Soviet-socialist systems amid Marxism-communism. With political administration and law on one hand and culture, arts and educational progressions on the other, Asia saw an assortment of cultural situations. The past British colonies can be characterized as pragmatist, the Spanish as social hierarchical, the French as cultural selective and the Dutch as authoritarian administrative. These features delicately but significantly color the personality of each one society. This is to say that the British district officer principles and advance of Mr Lee Kuan Yew, the previous prime minister of Singapore, could never have been fostered in the French routine Cambodia. The same applies to the French-educated and French backed King Sihanouk who survived his long supremacy in the disputed militarism of Indonesia; or the Nehru-Gandhi family reigned and endured electoral denunciation and electoral return, and the reinstatement of democracy in the Philippines, a non-Common Law country (Irina, 2005). The newly independent Asian states had one point of departure. As they sought a national identity, they wanted to depart from the Western. However the extent of instant denunciation or modification differs extremely. The differences rely, partly on the duration of the colonial rule, the nature of that rule, the conditions of the getting independence, the setting and character of the current local leadership. The longer the colonial rule the more ingrained the Western models. When the independence is more hard-won there is more brutal and self-centered colonial rule leading to sharper rejection of the colonial structures. In addition to this when the local historical myths are weak, the memory is cleaner hence there is a slate for democratic processes (Irina, 2005). India, with 300 years of British rule and law, in spite of its greatly complex and complicating cultural, religious racial and social separations, maintained all the essential principles of Westminster parliamentary system. This system could be eroded by neither a written constitution nor the creation of a President. Its democratic nature was justified at a time when increasing autocratic, individual, rule by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was astonishingly ended in a popular vote, although it was also afterward reinstated by another popular vote. In democracy the people decide which government they desire. The exciting news of the rejection of Ms Gandhi as well as the Congress Party I broke throughout a serious obscure in a time of the frightening increase of Asian authoritarianism, armed and martial law regimes flourishing from east to west and north to south (Randall, 2004). Mr. Marcos' deposition In the Philippines was essentially realized by democratic, popular vote. This vote was supported by People's Power; once more, it was popular vote that recognized that the people of Myanmar were opposed to the SLORC (State of Law and Order Revolutionary Council) military regime. Nowadays, India shows off, quite precisely, as the world’s largest democracy. Its first local leaders were British cultured. Among its precedent and current leaders were and are lawyers as well political scientists and theorists. Its Supreme Court pilots in its support for all the essential freedoms of open-minded democracy and in the defense of the rights of the destitute and miserable classes, the outcasts as well as low castes, children and women (Mark, 2002). Burma and Indonesia have nothing to connect them that can offer an explanation. They took to military control indirectly or directly. Many scholarly studies lay the cause for a long period of military rule ever since independence concerning Burma, to its early Hindu history. This brought with it an inborn rejection of the impartiality of the human, the adoration of the warrior cult as set up in the great heroics of Hindu culture. They also embraced the dominance of the tough leader who is the whole thing with its related meekness of the agrarian population. The scholars have also connected similar artistic features to the cruelty of the Pol Pot era. As concerns Indonesia, the external noticeable sign, the democracy form has been over laden with an upright paternalism that substituted the ruthless administrative paternalism in hands of the Dutch. This has provided the idea of guided democracy in the new (in 1959), which is now Old, Order. In this new order, having chosen their administration and President, the populace would have their spirit enlightened in the way and to the directions fashioned by their leader (Mark, 2002). The Vietnam, China and North Korea took to communism. It is of note that all three are of the Syndic culture and had the Civil Law system form. All of them, including North Korea in a very early, have more recently regressed to that system as an associated of the synchronized market economy as well as rule of law. The previous two, have however embarked on a plan of economic improvement and multi-sector or communist market economy which necessitate the formation, modification or remaking of the legal system. In this process, they both have come to admit that the arrangements of their modern legal systems are fundamentally Civil Law, although a great deal of the commercial/financial legislations is international and Anglo-American (Randall, 2004). Malaysia has its historic position in the Muslim world with its traditional rulers with roles as heads of all religious matters. This has added to its Westminster parliamentary replica a federal structure as well as a constitutional monarchy or, rather, ten monarchs. It has nine sultans of the nine states of Malaysia as well as the super king chosen from the nine rulers as symbol of Federal monarchy. This monarch has functions analogous to those of the Queen of England. With this monarchy comes a forum of Rulers that decide all matters that pertains to the Islamic religion and connecting to the immunities and privileges of its nine kings and one Super-King. Just like Singapore and India, its constitution offers for a sovereign judiciary (Randall, 2004). Like Singapore, the liberty of the Malaysian judiciary came under assault from its Prime Minister in the 1980s and underwent a turn down in public status and an indignation that had surprised the democratic world by its open nature. The Anwar Ibrahim trial in 1999 simply confirmed the rejection of a judiciary by the Executive oppression. The judiciary has successfully been intimidated. The 1999 trial as well as conviction of Anwar Ibrahim, continue fears that this judiciary is less than unafraid and without chauvinism in its justice administration (Irina, 2005). The period of Asian nation-building in addition to identity seeking commenced with the founding of the United Nations and goes on throughout the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe along with the Soviet Union. This time witnessed the internationalization of economics and politics, the Americanization of culture, and the ideology of the notion of the human being as the end and not the means of every social endeavor (Irina, 2005). For many Asian peoples, it has intended global support for their claim first for independence and then for nationhood. On achieving independence, real life started. The troubles of nourishing a constantly poor plus hungry people, an ever growing, healing from the destruction of the invasion of the Japanese and inhabitation, the construction of an economy that was once run by and benefited colonial rulers, plus entrepreneurs, the bearing of responsibilities and loads once the control of colonial rulers, the structuring of a unified society from diverse migrant communities that did not view themselves as one, but different and separate, with no common responsibilities and rights. All these were now the responsibilities the mainly young radicals who insisted and got liberty and independence (Randall, 2004). The right to development pushed by the United Nations via its agreements and assertions meant, at the beginning, an equal to the right to aid. The UN General Assembly gave definition to development as a complete economic, cultural, social and political progression with an aims to constant enhancement of the happiness of the whole population. This includes all individuals on the foundation of their free, active and meaningful participation in development as well as in the fair sharing of the resulting benefits. For those in the middle of the struggle for naked subsistence, to put up industries and institute schools, shelter and guard hundreds of millions, to feed and dress, the Right to Development does not have scope; it only handles civil and political rights (Randall, 2004). The internationalization of the ideology human rights joint with the conclusion of the Cold War freed energies of the west and freed its concentration to center on the Asian scene. In Asia, disturbing stories and much evidence of support surface of random arrests, extended detentions, brutality, ill-treatment and torture in dreadful forms. This is practiced on both one's own subjects plus those of others, depending on religious, scholarly or political grounds, restriction and media control, manipulation of the judiciary, etc. In brief the evidence is rising that the condition of human rights in Asia is less, much less than pleasing (Irina, 2005). Calls are subjected to these nations to advance their testimony, to identify the political and civil rights of their people and as their cultural, social and economic rights. The Western persistence is that the human rights universality means that human rights stand for universal standards that have to be adhered to by all nations. These rights are over and above municipal laws and can in no way be eliminated or incomplete by them in every nation. The materialization of human rights as an organization of customary international law valid to all nations implies that no nation can hide from it and no nation is secure from charges of cruelty (Irina, 2005). References Nisha Biswal. Bilateral Assistance Programs in China. Testimony. Available at http://www.usaid.gov/press/speeches/2011/ty111115.html Randall P. P. Asian discourses of rule of law: theories and implementation of rule of law in twelve Asian countries, France and the U.S. Volume 1 of Routledge Curzon law in Asia. Routledge, 2004. Mark B. Reconfiguring East Asia: regional institutions and organizations after the crisis. New York: Routledge, 2002. Irina M. (2005). Towards social stability and democratic governance in Central Eurasia: challenges to regional security. California: IOS Press, 2005. Read More